Indian cricketer who made history by batting as 12th man passes away

Indian cricket has some bizarre stories and this one ranks pretty high up. It involves Delhi cricketer Prem Bhatia who died in New Delhi last week at the age of 78

Ever heard of a 12th man being allowed to bat in a first-class match, taking the place of the captain in the batting line-up who was allowed to field and bowl?

Indian cricket has some bizarre stories and this one ranks pretty highly.

It involves Delhi cricketer Prem Bhatia who died in New Delhi last week at the age of 78.

Bhatia, who had a distinguished first class record (2,453 runs from 55 matches with six centuries, highest of 151 at 31.01 and also 36 wickets) was 12th man in the very first Irani Trophy match between Rest of India and the Ranji Trophy champions (in this case, Bombay) played at Railway Stadium, New Delhi in March 1960.

However, former India captain Lala Amarnath, who was captaining the Rest - at the age of 48 - asked for Bhatia to be able to bat in both innings while Amarnath was allowed to only bowl and field.

^{Former India captain Lala Amarnath}

Bhatia did pretty well for a 20-year-old university player in his first major match, scoring 22 and 50, the half-century described in the Indian Cricket annual as a “fine, forceful innings.”

There is a touch of poignancy to Bhatia’s passing as the Irani Trophy is currently being played between Rest of India and Ranji Trophy champions Vidarbha at Nagpur.   

When reminded of this incident, the youngest of his three sons (Surinder and Mohinder being the elder two) Rajendar Amarnath, a first-class cricketer himself and his father’s biographer said with a chuckle: “Only dad could have pulled this off.”

In a weird postscript, Bhatia found himself making up the XI 25 years later for North Zone in the Deodhar Trophy (50-over) semi-final against South Zone at Vijaywada when he was the manager as five of the players - captain Kapil Dev, Manoj Prbhakar,  Chetan Sharma, Mohinder Amarnath and Yashpal Sharma - could not reach the venue in time due to a travel snafu!

Life indeed had come full circle for Prem Bhatia.